The Victoria Family & Commercial Hotel

After yesterday's low point, I needed a real treat to pick me up, so it was with some trepidation that I headed for the Victoria Family & Commercial Hotel on Great George Street. To be honest, i've never been overly sure whether it was a hotel, pub or restaurant, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a warm and welcoming pub behind the old exterior.

The inside of the pub itself is huge - 3 separate drinking areas, and a massive seating area for diners. The decor is very outdated now, and there's certainly a level of disrepair inside the main bar - one family complained that there were snails under the table, whilst the carpet was worn away to a thread where I was sitting. Despite all this, my experience was totally positive - I took advantage of their lunchtime offer of a meal and a pint of Nicholsons Pale Ale for £7 - the food was well cooked and tasty, with a decent selection available. Good range of beers too, although the barman was confused over the different offers.

Very positive indeed - i'd certainly return here in the future.

Parkrow Bar & Brasserie

I expected some lows during this challenge, but certainly not on the 2nd day.. Due only to the fact that it is near my bus stop, I ended up going for a drink in the Parkrow Bar & Brasserie. This bar has annoyed me for some time, mainly due to the constant flyering along the Headrow. However, I went in open-minded, especially as it was advertising 'happy hour' between 4-7. If I had more time, I'd be looking into the Trades Description Act, as there was certainly nothing happy about this place.
Despite this being peak time for bars, and it screening the tennis from Wimbledon, there can only have been 5 or 6 people in the whole bar. There was no atmosphere at all, and even the bar staff looked bored. So, I finished my Coors Light (when did £2.50 become a discounted price for a pint?) and left quickly.
Sadly, due to the odd business model of having 3 pubs in one building, if I want to do this challenge properly I'm going to have to go back to try the Bierkeller and Shooters Sports Bar, but it certainly won't be for a long time.

Challenge Accepted !

Bit of a sneaky one this, as I wasn't planning on starting til Monday. However, an unexpected trip into Leeds coupled with some rubbish shopping meant that I had time on my hands. So, to start off the challenge, I chose a pub that most people walk past without even noticing it is there. Tucked away down a small alley opposite HMV is The Ship Inn (http://www.theshipleeds.co.uk/), a tiny yet welcoming pub that caters for harassed shoppers & bored men. Once you go inside, there's some token effort to keep up with a maritime theme, and the menu looks like they offer some standard 'pub grub', yet the real selling point is the amount of ales & local brews on tap. Excellent selection for beer drinkers (although sadly only one cider....), with a good range of darks & light ales. I went for a pint of Golden Pippin (by Copper Dragon - 3.9%) which i'd never tried before, but definitely goes on my 'must revisit' list....

Overall, not a wasted journey, but I doubt I would make the effort to go back to The Ship - there just wasn't enough to warrant a repeat visit. Still - not a bad start to the challenge.

A new challenge....

Ok - i'm the first to admit that I have new ideas, get fully involved with them for a few weeks, and then forget about them totally. However, a blog is something that I really want to keep up - it's a good way for me to keep track of what i've done in the year, and also it might be useful for others to read. So, i've been looking for ways in which I can relaunch the blog and make it more interesting.

For a while now, I've been looking for a challenge - something along the lines of the Dave Gorman / Danny Wallace books I read years ago. I started thinking about the things I enjoy as hobbies - football would be the obvious choice, as it lends itself to challenges (the '92 club' are a good example of this). However, it's expensive to do, and it would mean I miss Brighton games, so that's not an option.

Then, after a chat with some people in a pub the other night, the ideal challenge came to me. Why not visit every pub in Leeds and try to find out which are the best ones? For years, i've been going to mediocre pubs, drinking standard lager, just because they are the well known ones. There's nothing better than finding some 'hidden gems', and introducing other people to a genuinely nice drinking experience. Also, it means I might be able to find some different drink choices.....

I've got no idea how many pubs there are in Leeds City Centre, but i've got time and a will to succeed, so nothing can stop me !

Quick note at this point - the definition of a pub is tricky. It can't just be anywhere that serves alcohol, or i'd end up in bloody Pizza Express again. Also out for now are swanky bars - just because they serve Becks and have a few seats, it doesn't make them a pub. So, for starters, pubs are traditional drinking establishments - anyone that focuses on the drink rather than dancing.

So, the challenge starts here.... Check back later for the first entry.....

New blogs coming soon.....

First game of the season - Hull City v Brighton 18/08/12

After the 'spectacular summer of sport', which seemed to consist of England failing miserably in a major competition once again, before Team GB surprised everyone by being quite good at sports no-one usually watches, it's time to get back to real competition once again. Yes - the Npower Championship kicked-off the 2012/13 season this Saturday, and I took Kyle along to see our beloved Brighton start the annual disappointment much earlier than usual.

The Humber Bridge

Hull itself is a terrible place to visit - a typical Northern town desperately trying to reinvent itself as a tourist attraction, but only managing to reinforce a sense of sadness & despair. As the old saying goes - you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.

It's often better to face away from the pitch when Brighton are playing.

We stopped off at a reasonable pub (the Three John Scotts - a bog-standard Wetherspoons, not really worthy of a place in the Good Beer Guide), and then made our way to the ground. The KC stadium was one of the original 'new breed' of out-of-town football stadiums, and is starting to look particularly shabby in places. Once inside, it could have been any stadium in any city in the world - there was nothing to make it stand out.

New signing Tomas Kusczack

The football itself was a strange one. Brighton played well enough - new signings Bruno and Bridge were excellent in the full-back positions, whilst Crofts and Bridcutt bossed the midfield throughout. However, there was no penetration at all, and the forward pairing of Mackail-Smith & Barnes looked starved of possession. Hull showed no style, and were content to chase possession for much of the game. Things changed when Kazenga Lua-Lua was introduced, and his pace & tricks started to worry the Hull defence. However, despite this, Hull capitalised on a loose ball, and Jay Simpson scored a late winner. 

Horrible foul on Craig Noone - not even a yellow card.

Kusczack watches the play

Luke Campbell - Hull's gold medal winning boxer

On the balance of play, Brighton deserved the win, but I think we'll play a lot worse than that this season and still get results. Priority has to be a new target man though - you can't play two small strikers when we've got such good quality crossers of the ball.

Still, a good day overall.

Hull City 1 (Simpson 85mins) vs Brighton 0

First match of the season

The whole point of starting this blog was to have a way of following my little obsessions. As people who know me will be aware, the largest obsession I have is with football. So, when I found out that one of Team GB's olympic football matches would be at Old Trafford, it was an easy decision to go along.

Now, i'm no Man Utd fan - far from it, but i've always enjoyed going to Old Trafford. It's a wonderful old stadium, which has been expanded and enhanced without losing that feeling of history. There's not a bad view in the ground, and you really get a sense of a true football stadium, not like these soulless new builds being launched all the time (Yes Cardiff and Manchester City - this is directed at you).

The event itself was good - we'd been warned about the increased security before arriving, but I don't think anyone realised just how bad it would be. I got to the ground at 4:30, which was half an hour before the first game kicked off. There were loads of queues opposite the ground, and I waited 45mins for a bag check to be conducted by an officious jobsworth Scouser, in which he placed my bag in a sealed plastic container for me to take into the ground. I then had to put my wallet, keys and mobile in another plastic bag, and hand it to the stewards before entering. I'm all for good security - no-one wants to be blown up after all - but this was pure overkill and utterly pointless. The stewards didn't know what they were looking for (they challenged my bag because it had a corporate logo on, but missed the flick-knife I keep on my key-ring....), and there were no signs directing us where to go.

My ticked entitled me to see two games - the first of which was United Arab Emirates vs Uruguay. UAE looked a trick and skillful side, but ran out of stamina after around an hour. Uruguay, who had the racist cheat Luis Suarez in their side (roundly booed with every touch - well deserved), were dull and formulaic, but ended up winning 2-1.

UAE celebrate Matar's opener

United Arab Emirates 1 ISMAEIL MATAR (23'), Uruguay 2 RAMIREZ Gaston (42'), LODEIRO Nicolas (56')


 The main event was Team GB, captained by Ryan Giggs, against Senegal. 

The teams line up for the national anthems

I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about Senegalese football, but their players seemed to be under the impression that points were awarded for the amount of times you can kick your opponent. Fouls ranged from the niggly to the violent, with one particular one on Neil Taylor being as bad as i've seen in the professional game. Still, it seemed to work for them, and the game ended in a 1-1 draw. Team GB looked poor, and I can't help thinking that the 3 'over 23' players were poorly chosen. The team needed speed and domination, and Giggs, Bellamy & Richards can't provide that any more. In my opinion, we should have looked for a pacy winger (Adam Johnson or Shaun Wright-Phillips) and a clinical striker (Bobby Zamora).

Butland takes a goal kick

Team GB 1 BELLAMY Craig (20'), Senegal 1 KONATE Moussa (82')

Still, despite all this, it was nice to get back to seeing some football again. Roll on 18th August.....